Raymond Bernard (director)
Eureka! (studio)
PG (certificate)
115min (length)
30 March 2015 (released)
30 March 2015
Adapted from a novel by Roland Dorgeles, and hauntingly depicting the horrors that occurred on the European front during the First World War, Wooden Crosses (Les Croix De Bois) will penetrate your mind like a shrapnel and stay with you for a long time!
Directed by Raymond Bernard, who only two years later gave us his epic adaption of Les Misérables, the movie has a relatively simple plotline but it is the camera techniques and unusual angles (typical of Bernard’s works) that emphasise the sheer horror and despair all the more – making it as much an utterly truthful depiction of war than a cinematic masterpiece.
What is unusual from the outset is that the additional actors are in fact war veterans who were asked by director Bernard to re-enact their real life horrors for the film –a truly proud achievement if ever there was one!
The story concerns a squad from the 39th Infantry (author Roland Dorgéles himself was a former corporal of the 39th) and their nightmarish trauma and ultimate martyrdom during some months in 1915, taking place in France’s Champagne district. The squad is made up of men from all walks of life (the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker…) though none is a professional soldier, naturally! Sensitive law student Gilbert Demachy (Pierre Blanchar) joins the regiment, and we learn of his background and hopes by means of brief and distorted flashback sequences depicting him in the dancehalls with the girl he loves. As the battle in the trenches unfolds, we witness the soldier’s fate. In the end only one man of the squad is destined to survive this hell on earth, namely Sulphart (Gabriel Gabrio), a soldier who is allowed to leave the regiment thanks to a severe hand injury.
Some of the sequences display particular harrowing images, for example the parade of some surviving soldiers, who march drenched in mud in front if the General. Then there is the desolately situated grave of a fallen soldier, with the wind blowing through nearby trees. Or the desperate wait of the squad in the trenches, obliged to remain in their position while the enemy line is digging tunnels filled with explosives. Worse, they are not allowed to display real emotion lest morale is on the wane. That said, these men were only human yet not one of them ever complains. Is this kind of stoicism actually to be believed? But theirs was not to reason why…
The final image is that of fatally wounded Adjudant Demachy, who dies alone in the deserted battlefield, once more thinking of the fading image of the girl he loves and which he will never see again. In his dying moments, an imaginary procession of dead soldiers march above him, each and everyone carrying a wooden cross.
At the film’s gala premiere, the then French president Paul Doumer attended and was apparently visibly shaken. Another interesting bit of information is that director Bernard strived to film on authentic locations, and in some cases leftover explosives from the war had to be detected before they were finally detonated for the film’s battle scenes.
Wooden Crosses is a true testament of human courage and suffering, and a worthy memorial for the simple soldier.
As part of ‘The Masters Of Cinema’ series, the film is released on Dual-Edition format, with a gorgeous restoration by Pathé, and with the following SPECIAL FEATURES:
New HD 1080p presentation of the film from Pathé’s astonishing 2014 4K restoration
• Optional English subtitles
• Video interview with historian Marc Ferro and film historian Laurent Veray
• A short documentary on the new restoration
• Wooden Crosses: A Sonic Adventure, documentary exploring early sound design
• Archival interview with Roland Dorgelès
• Archival interview with director Raymond Bernard
• Vintage 1914 newsreels
• Documentary piece on early 20th century poster artist Adrien Barrère
• The Absent Battle, the Omnipresent War, a collection of photography from WWI taken by André Schnellbach who served with Dorgelès in the 39th
• Booklet featuring a new and exclusive interview by film critic Emmanuel Burdeau, and rare archival material